Turks are now the masters of this country, but their dominion begins to decline.

The retreat of the Kimmerians, who fled before the Scythians, has given rise to the assertion that they conquered Asia, because what the Romans called Asia Minor, was by the more ancient Greeks usually denominated Asia; but it is clear that their irruption was along the sea-coast, and did not extend beyond the maritime districts (1). One of their chiefs who conducted it was called Lygdamis; he penetrated into Lydia and Ionia, took Sardis, and died in Cilicia. This destructive incursion, which succeeded probably because it was unexpected, has been mentioned by some Greek poets (2), as well as by Herodotus (3), Callisthenes (4), and Strabo (5). They were at length expelled from Asia Minor by the father of Croesus (6).

When the Scythians first attacked them on the European side of their Bosphorus, their endangered tribes held a council; the chiefs and their friends wished to resist the invaders, but the others preferred a voluntary emigration. Their difference of opinion produced a battle, and the survivors abandoned their country to the Scythians (7). But while one portion went under Lygdamis to Asia, the more warlike and larger part of the Kimmerian nations, according to the geographers cursorily mentioned by Plutarch (8), receded westward from the Scythians, and proceeded to inhabit the remoter regions of Europe, extending to the German Ocean. "Here," he adds, " it is said that they live in a dark, woody country, where the sun is seldom seen, from their many lofty and spreading trees, which reach into the interior as far as the Hercynian forest." But whether their progress to these parts was the consequence of the Scythian attack, or had preceded it, is of little importance to us to ascertain. The fact is unquestionable, that the Kimmerians anciently diffused themselves towards the German Ocean.

The history of the Kimmerians, from their leaving the eastern Bosphorus to their reaching the Cimbric Chersonesus on the Baltic, has not been perpetuated. The traditions of Italy, and even an ancient historian intimate, that Kimmerians were in those regions near Naples, where the ancient mythologists place the country of the dead (9). Their early occupation of Europe and extensive

(1) Herod. Clio, s. 15.

(2) By Callinus in his poems, who calls them the "impetuous Kimmerians." Strab. lib. xiv. p. 958., and by Callimachus, Hym. in Dian. 252.

(3) Herod. Clio, s. 6. Ibid. Melpom.

(4) Ap. Strab. p. 930.

(5) Strab. Geog. lib. i. p. 106. et al.

(6) Herod. Clio, s. 16.

(7) Herod. Melpom. s. 11.

(8) Plutarch in Mario.

(9) Strabo says,

And they deem this place Plutonian, and say that the Kim

dispersion divest this circumstance of any improbability. They who wandered across Europe from the Thracian Bosphorus into Jutland, may have also migrated southward into Italy, like the Goths and Lombards of a future age. But as nations, in the Nomadic state, have little other literature than funeral inscriptions, the brief and vague songs of their bands, wild incantations, or rude expressions of martial trophics, divested of all circumstance or chronology, it is not till they assail the welfare of the civilized, and become a part of their national history, that we have any notice of their transactions; and often not till this period, any indication of their existence. But two intimations have been preserved to us of the Kimmerians, which probably express the general outline of their history. They are stated to have often made plundering incursions (1), and they were considered by Posidonius, to whose geographical works Strabo was often indebted, as a predatory and wandering nation (2).

The Cimbri were

In the century before Cæsar they became known to Kimmerians. the Romans by the harsher pronunciation of Kimbri (3), in that formidable irruption from which Marius rescued the Roman state. At this period a great body of them quitted their settlements on the Baltic, and, in conjunction with other tribes, entered the great Hercynian forest, which covered the largest part of ancient Germany. Repulsed by the Boioi, they descended on the Danube. Penetrating into Noricum and Illyricum, they defeated the Roman consul Narbo; and a few years afterwards, having by their ambassadors to Rome solicited in vain the senate, to assign them lands for their habitation, for which they offered to assist the Romans in their wars, they defeated four other consuls in as many successive battles, and entered. Gaul. Having ravaged all the country between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, they spread into Spain, with the same spirit of desolation. Repulsed there by the Celtiberi, they returned to France; and joining with the Teutones, who had also wandered from the Baltic, they burst

merians are there; and they who sail thither, first sacrifice to propitiate the subterraneous demons, which the priests exhort them to do, on account of the profit which they derive from the offering. There is a fountain of river water, but all abstain from this, as they think it the water of the Styx. Geog. p. 171. Ephorus applying this place to the Kimmerians," etc. Ib. p. 375.

(1) Strabo, p. 106. This habit no doubt occasioned the word Cimbri to signify robbers among the Germans, as Plutarch remarks in his life of Marius.

(2) Posid. ap. Strab. p. 450.

(3) That the Kippspios of the Greeks were the Kimbroi of the Greeks, and Cimbri (Kimbri) of the Latin writers, was not only the opinion of Posidonius, whom Strabo quotes, lib. vii. p. 293., but of the Greeks generally : " quum Græci Cimbros Cimmeriorum nomine afficiant," ib. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, that to those who were called Κιμμερίες, the appellation of Κίμβρων was applied in process of time, and by the corruption of language, lib. v. p. 309. Plutarch, in his life of Marius, also identifies the Kimbri with the Kimmerioi. He says, "From these regions, when they came into Italy, they began their march, being anciently called Kimmerioi, and in process of time Kimbroi.”

into Italy with a force, that had accumulated in every region which they had traversed. Rome was thrown into consternation by their progress; and it required all the talents and experience of Marius, Sylla, and the best Roman officers, to overthrow them (4).

The great mass of the Kimbric population perished in these conflicts. The Romans are stated to have destroyed, from two to three hundred thousand, in two battles. It is impossible to read of human slaughter without lamenting it, or without feeling some abhorrence of those, however famed as heroes, by whom it has been effected. But in this war, the Kimbri provoked the destruction, by their desolating aggressions and considering the spirit and customs of barbaric ferocity, which they maintained, and their national restlessness, their disappearance as advantageous to the progress of civilization, and to the interests of humanity. Marius did not, like Cæsar, go into Gaul in search of a sanguinary warfare. He obeyed the call of his country to rescue it from a calamitous invasion. His successes filled Rome with peculiar joy, and were sung by the poet Archias, whom Cicero's eloquence has made illustrious (2).

The rest of the Kimmerian nation on the Continent remained in a feeble and scattered state. They are noticed by Strabo, as existing in his time on the Baltic (3); and are more briefly alluded to by Pliny (4). Both these writers represent them on the northwestern shores of Europe, or on those coasts of the German Ocean from which the Saxons and Danes made afterwards expeditions into Britain.

In the days of Tacitus, this ancient nation had almost ceased to exist on the continent of Europe; but his expressions imply their former power and celebrity. When he mentions the Kimbri who, in his time, remained in the peninsula of Jutland, he says, “A small state now, but great in glory; the marks of their ancient fame yet remain, far and wide, about the Elbe; by whose extent you may measure the power and greatness of this people, and accredit the reported numbers of their army. They were exist ing, or their fame continued in those parts, in the days of Claudian (5).

(1) Liv. Epit. 63-67. Florus, lib. iii. c 3. Oros. lib. v. c. 16. Strabo, lib. v. Plut. Vit. Mar. We have the names of three of their kings from Livy, Plutarch, and Florus: these are Bolus, Bojorisc, and Teutobochus. "Ipsi

(2) Even the illiterate Marius was pleased with this Parnassian effusion. illi C. Mario, qui durior ad hæc studia videbatur, jucundus fuit." Cicer. Or. pro Arch. c. 9.

(3) He remarks that, in his time, Kimbri continued to inhabit their former settlements on the Baltic, and had sent a present of one of their sacred cauldrons to Augustus, lib. vi. p. 449.

(4) Nat. Hist. lib. iv. c. 27. and 28. The latter passage intimates Inland Cimbri near the Rhine, as well as the Cimbri in the peninsula. In lib. vi. c. 14. he mentions Cimmerii in Asia, near the Caspian.

(5) Tacitus de Morib. Germ. Claudian calls the Northern Ocean by their name, "Cimbrica Thetis." Cons. Hon. lib. iv.

Thus far we have proceeded upon the authentic authorities, which remain to us in the classical writers, of the primeval population of Europe. From these it is manifest that the earliest inhabitants of the north of Europe were the Kimmerians or Kimbri; and that they spread over it from the Kimmerian Bosphorus to the Kimbric Chersonesus; that is, from Thrace and its vicinity, to Jutland and the German Ocean to that ocean from which the passage is direct to Britain;-the regular voyage in our times from Hamburgh to England or Scotland.

Kimmerians and

:

The habit of moveable nations in the uncivilized or Cymry in Britain. nomadic state would lead us to infer, as these Kimmerii or Kimbri are characterised as a wandering nation, and are shown by all that remains of their history to have been so, that at some early period, after they reached the shores of the German Ocean, they crossed it in their rude vessels to Great Britain. This reasonable supposition, analogous to all that we know of the customs of such nations, and of the colonization of other parts of the world, has a remarkable support in the name and traditions of the Welsh, and their ancient British literature. It is agreed by the British antiquaries, that the most ancient inhabitants of our island were called Cymry (pronounced Kumri): they are so named in all that remains of the ancient British literature. The Welsh, who are their descendants, have always called themselves Cymry, and have given the same appellation to the earliest colonists of our island, and as the authorities already referred to, prove that the Kup or Kimbri were the ancient possessors of the northern coasts of the Germanic Ocean, and attempted foreign enterprises, it seems to be a safe and reasonable inference, that the Cymry of Britain originated from the continental Kimmerians (1). That a district, in the northern part of England, was inhabited by a part of the ancient British nation, and called Cumbria, whence the present Cumberland, is a fact favourable to this presumption.

The Danish traditions of expeditions and conquests in Britain, from Jutland and its vicinity, long before our Saviour's birth, which Saxo Grammaticus has incorporated into his history, may here be noticed. He is an authority too vague to be trusted alone; but he is evidence of the traditions of his countrymen, and these may claim that attention, when they coincide with those of the ancient British, which they would not otherwise deserve. They add something to the probability of early migrations or expedi tions from these regions into our islands, although they must not be confounded with historical facts.

(1) Tacitus mentions a circumstance favourable to this deduction He says of the OEstii on the Baltic, that their language resembled the British, lingua Britannicæ proprior." De Mor. Germ. If the opinion suggested in the text be true, OEstii must have been a Kimmerian tribe.

the

The historical triads of the Welsh connect themselves with these suppositions in a very striking

Hu Cadarn.

manner (1). They state that the Cymry were the first inhabitants of Britain, before whose arrival it was occupied by bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with large protuberances (2). They add, that Hu Cadarn, or Hu the Strong, or Mighty, led the nation of the Kymry through the Hazy, or German Ocean, into Britain, and to Llydaw, or Armorica, in France; and that the Kymry came from the eastern parts of Europe, or the regions where Constantinople now stands (3). Though we would not convert Welsh traditions into history, where they stand alone, it cannot be unreasonable to remember them, when they coincide with the classical authorities. In the present case the agreement is striking. The Kimmerians, according to the authorities already stated, procéeded from the vicinity of the Kimmerian Bosphorus to the German Ocean and the Welsh deduce their ancestors, the Cymry, from the regions south of the Bosphorus. The Welsh indeed add the name of their chieftain, and that a division of the same people settled in Armorica. But if the memory of Lygdamis, who led the Kimmerian emigration to Asia, and of Brennus, who marched with the Kelts against Greece, were preserved in the countries which they overran, so might the name of Hu Cadarn, who conducted some part of the western emigrations, be remembered in the island which he colonized (4). That Armorica, or Bretagne, was peopled by a race of men similar to those who inhabited Britain, is verified by the close resemblance of the languages of the two countries.

:

(1) The Welsh have several collections of historical triads; which are three events coupled together, that were thought by the collector to have some mutual analogy. It is the strange form into which their bards, or ancient writers, chose to arrange the early circumstances of their history. One of the most complete series of their triads has been printed in the Archaiology of Wales, vol. ii. p. 57-75. It was printed from a MS. dated 1601, and the writer of it states that he had taken them out of the books of Caradoc of Llancarvan, and of John Breckfa. Caradoc lived in the twelfth century. Breckfa was much later.

(2) It may not be uninteresting to translate the whole triad :-"Three names have been given to the isle of Britain since the beginning. Before it was inhabited, it was called Clas Merddin (literally the country with sea cliffs), and afterwards Fel Ynis (the island of honey). When government had been imposed upon it by Prydain, the son of Aedd the Great, it was called Ynys Prydain (the island of Prydain); and there was no tribute to any but to the race of the Kymry, because they first obtained it; and before them, there were no more men alive in it, nor any thing else but bears, wolves, beavers, and the oxen with the high prominence." Triad 1. Arch. v. ii. p. 57.

(3) The three pillars of the nation of the isle of Britain. First, Hu Cadarn, who led the nation of the Cymry first to the isle of Britain; and from the country of Summer, which is called Deffrobani, they came; this is where Constantinople is : and through the hazy ocean they came to the island of Britain, and to Llydaw, where they have remained." Triad 4. p. 57.

(4) Pausanias has preserved the names of many of the kings of the Kelts who invaded Greece. So, Livy has transmitted to us those of the Keltic leaders who attacked Italy in the time of the first Tarquin.